A comparison of the Ists + a nice book

Gothamist is where it all started. I link to it enough, and did so in the previous post, so go there at once and have a browse if you want a read which truly reaches out into the current happenings in New York. There are snippets of arts, entertainment, film. There are restaurant reviews. There are regular recipes. There’s even a weather slot. This is the perfect example of the genuine outreach blog.

Next, I chose to check out Bostonist, which at only two months old is already doing quite a bit of its own outreach. There’s a regular music listing and some selected international news — Pontiff Watch Boston Edition as an example.

Seattlest (hmm, no –ist suffix) is more homely, with sports high on the agenda. It’s as old as Bostonist. There’s an offshoot, also, of the recent Gothamist–esque your–questions–answered feature: where to unleash your dog is the latest appearance. Food and drink are also honoured.

DCist is Washington’s stall in the stable. It’s been around for about 8 months. Its outlook is quite arty, techy and weathery also, but I have to confess that just as DC doesn’t do much for me as an ‘idea city’ — it seems sterile somehow — so DCist doesn’t succeed in making me think that I’d really want to go there. It does link to Club Whirled, what I think is a fictional blog (although maybe not, but it’s certainly a rollercoaster) about three gay men who live within a block of each other in DC, though. So it’s not all bad.

Chicagoist, an 8–month–old cheeky chappie of a blog, has what to my eyes is an ideal mix of film, urban outreach and the odd spot of sex: I loved this entry about a court decision that sperm is a gift, not a loan! They currently have a good entry on The Oscars, too.

Torontoist, born in October 2004, has the usual mix of shopping, food, news and urban outreach, and I like its concentration on arts and media of all kinds. Theatre and magazines get mentioned, including The Walrus which, despite its name, is a respectable arts title.

LA and San Francisco are also offshoots, but I’ll concentrate finally on Londonist which to my mind just doesn’t reach out enough into what’s happening there. Around since October 2004, it’s sadly more of a general blog with a London slant, rather than a London blog with a general embrace. Didn’t even post specifically on a London event, by the looks of things, until 2005. Not enough Londoncentric photos, either. But it’s a promising start and if it wasn’t an Ist, I’d be fond of it as it is.

So, that’s it. But I do want to mention one other thing: I was looking at Poets & Writers yesterday and it had a link to the lovely Vernacular Press, which has a line in lavish production and new writing. Anthropology of an Americal Girl is a book which, judging by the quality of the first chapter, I’d really like to explore further.

tags: [New York] [Boston] [Seattle] [DC] [Chicago] [Toronto] [LA] [SF] [London] [publishing]

Joy Zipper

Some news. Schism in the Anglican Communion is now on the cards. Apparently those men in robes meeting in Newry have decided that they cannot commune with the American and Canadian churches which continue down a more libertarian path. But only temporarily, you understand, so they can ‘consider their position’. Hmm. Somehow I don’t think they will reconsider. Although different pressures may be brought to bear — a desire to be whole on the one hand and a life in the 21st century on the other — so it’ll be interesting.

And just for future reference, the US may drop a couple of bombs on Iran later this year. May do. Don’t know.

And most importantly since it’s the weekend, I predict that Joy Zipper are going to get quite popular (although not outrageously so) when their forthcoming album adds to their already highly–pleasing output. We’ve had it for a year but they only get it in the US now. Heh. Via Gothamist.

tags: [gay marriage] [church] [gay] [music] [joy zipper]

The Gates may be ephemeral, but...

…hot gay sex in Central Park is forever! (NSFW)

The hanky code says orange is ‘anything goes’ after all. Heh. With only a few days to go, I’ll keep checking to see if there are any reports of how much sex actually went on there during the orange period. I bet it was more than usual. ;o)

By the way, the phrase ‘the orange period’ is all mine, because I got there first in defining it as the period during which New York’s Central Park played host to Christo & Jeanne–Claude’s Gates! Ooops, but that Creative Commons License says otherwise. Damn.

tags: [the gates] [central park] [sex] [gay]

Jason Kottke goes all self-sufficient reader-supported

In news that uncomfortably reminds me of the heading–for–meltdown days when I thought “Oh, I’ll just freelance. It’ll be okay” it emerges that Jason Kottke has given up his job to work on his blog fulltime.

Now, the man isn’t rich. He is very well–known… among bloggers. Kottke.org, the blog in question, is very well–known… among bloggers. And there lies the problem, because to support himself financially, he’s enlisting the financial support of bloggers to pay his bills.

They just won’t want to pay the $30 per head that he asks as a donation. Still a free, no–ads site, but you pay if you want. It’s a wonderful, ambitious recipe for disaster, in my opinion. And that’s why I hope people won’t pay.

Before anyone accuses me of being a heartless bastard, I’m not saying this because “he has the guts to go it alone and I don’t” or psychobabble like that. Let me just point out that the best blogs carry the unmistakable flavour of enthusiasm for a range of personal interests. That enthusiasm is heightened if you turn to your blog after a comparatively lacklustre day’s work.

If your passion becomes your way of earning a crust, it might work. But he needs money. Real big money. And very few people really have that hunger there, and it’s a hunger which is oft tested and proved by time, rather than grand first gestures.

So let’s wait and see, but I wish the man would at least get a part–time job or a few really flexible contracts. Or get wise for his own good. Le sigh.

tags: [blog] [blogging] [blogs] [work] [money] [micropatron] [micropayment]

Primates in robes. Hmm. How very gay.

Newry, here in Northern Ireland, is the meeting–place this week of the Primates Meeting 2005 — a gathering at which the chief ordained officials of the Anglican Communion will meet to discuss issues regarding homosexuality and the church.

If you’re gay or homophobic you’ll certainly be aware that in 2003, Gene Robinson was ordained as Bishop of New Hampshire by the Episcopal Church in the US. Outcry followed. Here in the UK, Jeffrey John was appointed as Bishop of Reading, but didn’t take up the post due to controversy.

Well, not just controversy. There was so much biblical fucking anger that a massive section of the Church worldwide finally threatened to walk away and take its congregations and clergy with it.

Why the fuss? Both men were gay.

So the Lambeth Commission was set up to report:

on the legal and theological implications flowing from the decisions of the Episcopal Church (USA) to appoint a priest in a committed same sex relationship as one of its bishops, and [...] specifically on [...] the ways in which provinces of the Anglican Communion may relate to one another in situations where the ecclesiastical authorities of one province feel unable to maintain the fullness of communion with another part of the Anglican Communion

After the Commission issued its report, its chairman Robin Eames, Primate of all Ireland, invited all the Primates to Newry to discuss everything. This is therefore big news for 2 reasons: they’re all meeting a few miles away from here, and what they’re talking about there will determine whether there will continue to be a single worldwide Anglican church in future. History in the making…

I think the Church should split over this issue. First, why have a single Communion eternally polluted by strife between 2 factions which can never reconcile with each other when you could have 2 independent happy Churches? Second, being a gay atheist, I have to confess that I see no reason why the future of any church of any kind should be desperately, artificially prolonged.

Now, I’m not crowing, and not jubilant: Christians will undoubtedly be very distressed over this, and for that they have my sympathy. But their institutions that exert their influence over a simply organic planet: as they crumble, let them crumble.

tags: [marriage] [gay marriage] [church] [gay]

How very not gay. At all

Via BoingBoing, I’ve encountered one of the strangest gay marriage stories ever:

On Friday, under a romantic drizzle in a muddy clearing in Compostela Valley province in Mindanao, Ka Andres and Ka Jose exchanged vows in a heavily guarded ceremony before local villagers, friends from the city and their comrades in arms.

They are considered the first homosexual couple in the New People's Army (NPA) who were wed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

During the “wedding,” sponsors draped a sequined CPP flag around the couple’s shoulders. The flag was held in place by a long, beaded cord which also went around the couple and the sponsors — symbolizing that their marriage would be made stronger with the help of comrades and the masses.

Andres held a bullet, as did Jose and each other's hands. The bullets represented their “commitment in the armed struggle.”

So: gay, guerrillas, outcasts, terrorists to some in the world… not that I support brutal murderers or anything, but never let it be said that all gay people are nancy–boy pussies! Sheesh!

And by the way, MetaFilter comments are here. A full day after I got hold of this. Oh yeah!

tags: [gaymarriage] [guerrilla] [communism] [gay]

A decent America. — What?!

America’s House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted in favour of a Bill which seeks to curb indecency by introducing massive fines. $500,000 a nipple, no kidding. But only on TV. Hmm. It doesn’t surprise me that they passed this Bill though — who’s going to even try to argue for ‘permissible indecency’ in front of one of the most conservative legislatures of the western world?

Up in Canada, however, they’re about to invoke the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in making same–sex marriage fully legal. Woo! Way to go, mes amis!

tags: [decency] [breasts] [tv] [law] [canada] [gaymarriage] [marriage]

The Gates, differently

The Gates composite
Originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Well, overtaken by Gothamist’s superb satellite photo post of The Gates, I looked around on Flickr and made this rough collagey thing. Not that it’s much good itself, but I loved clicking through the photos on flickr and wandering through the park in my head. I caught something online, earlier, along the lines of “To properly appreciate The Gates, one must stroke one’s beard at least three times.” Heh!

So, yeah...

…I got this message today (and I consider posting it here fair use, especially since I’m naming the insanely talented Bryon Fear as the graphical artist and providing a link to the site, OUT, which it comes from). As you can see, it’s an anonymous card sent by an admirer. I’m all intrigued.

Anyone want to own up? ;o)

What a shit name

When I’m older my name is going to be seriously unappealing!

tags: [name] [baby] [peter] [pete]

Golden rivers in the trees

I’m relieved that, apart from coffee, my first proper post about the city of New York will be about its citizens and visitors looking at it in a new way by means of beauty. For tomorrow, the 12th of February, will see rivers of gold flow through the lower branches of the trees in Central Park.

Relief aside, it’s an amazing project. Created by Christo and Jeanne–Claude, the people who most famously wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin, The Gates in Central Park (which I’ve read a lot about on Gothamist) will span 23 miles of the park’s footpaths. Golden material will hang from the top of each ‘gate’, making it look like there’s shimmering warmth hovering in the branches of the trees. Quite something on a freezing winter day in a brown and grey park at the heart of one of the world’s great cities!

Aside from the obvious visual effects, what I like to call the ‘Christmas Decoration effect’ will happen: old places will be made rich and strange for a while, and when it’s all taken away, those places will be new and old at the same time. Hmm... the presence of an effect through its absence.

While it’s present, though, check out its blog, The Gates @ Central Park.

Update, 12th Feb: They’re unfurled.

tags: [new york] [central park] [park] [gates] [art] [sculpture] [christo]

To amplify?

Or not? The question, posed by James Fenton in this week’s Guardian Review (a books magazine, and one of the best ‘free’ offerings around) interests me. Do we want our actors to appear unassisted? I’d say yes. When I go to the theatre, I want the human–sized, attention–sized, attention–filled, intimate atmosphere of a theatre — hence no speakers needed. If I want amplified drama (and I often do) I turn to my DVD collection, or the cinema. It’s the same with music. However well–recorded your CD, however good your HiFi, you are listening to a layer of machinery between your ears and the musician and room (or hall, church, wherever). Classical music: I nearly always prefer a live performance. ‘Popular’ music: I nearly always prefer a CD.

If reading a gentle, readable, cultured poet (heh, and that’s not me, it’s James Fenton!) who’s writing about a subject dear to him isn’t enough for you, what about a Thing? Inspired by the Review’s photo of an amphitheatre, I remembered looking at the Third Reich in Ruins site (filled with photos of, and info about, the remaining architecture of Nazi Germany). Thingstätte (Thing arenas) were open–air arenas modelled on Roman amphitheatres.

In 1934 the Nazi Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels began a movement based on the “Blut und Boden” (Blood and Soil) ideology — the so–called “Thing” movement. A Thing was an ancient Nordic/Germanic gathering of the people, in an outdoor setting. The Nazi Thing gatherings were to be held in specially–constructed outdoor amphitheaters, called (in the singular) Thingplatz or Thingstätte. Here, the people would gather for Völkisch meetings and to view theater and propaganda presentations written especially for the Thing style. The Thing sites were to be built as much as possible in a natural setting, incorporating rocks, trees, water bodies, ruins, and hills of some historical or mythical significance.

Leaving the hateful ideology which led to these places completely aside, I think they are a superb marriage of landscape and architecture, although I react to them with the same sense of the sinister which this blogger (superb photos of the Heidelberg site) senses. Had any other country built them, they would be justly popular to this day and ideal for theatre, music or poetry. Hmm.

tags: [theatre] [music] [amplifier] [CD] [thing] [nazi]

Cookies

Yum. Except, in this case, these delicious treats cost $900 to the girls who made them. It happened like this: two teenage girls in Durango, Colorado decided that, instead of going to ‘a dance’ (how quaint) where there might be ‘drunkenness and cursing’ (again, how quaint) they’d rather stay at home. And after completing their chores, mucking out the livestock or whatever it was, they asked their dad if it was OK to make some cookes as a surprise for neighbours. They left them on doorsteps — and then got sued for $900. It gets better worse:

Inside one of the nine scattered rural homes south of Durango that got cookies that night, a 49–year–old woman became so terrified by the knocks on her door around 10:30 p.m. that she called the sheriff’s department. Deputies determined that no crime had been committed.

But Wanita Renea Young ended up in the hospital emergency room the next day after suffering a severe anxiety attack she thought might be a heart attack.

A Durango judge Thursday awarded Young almost $900 to recoup her medical bills. She received nothing for pain and suffering.

“The victory wasn’t sweet,” Young said Thursday afternoon. “I’m not gloating about it. I just hope the girls learned a lesson.”

WHAT THE FUCK?!??!?!??!?

The girls wrote letters of apology to Young. Taylor's letter, written a few days after the episode, said in part: “I didn’t realize this would cause trouble for you. … I just wanted you to know that someone cared about you and your family.”

The families had offered to pay Young’s medical bills if she would agree to indemnify the families against future claims.

Young wouldn’t sign the agreement. She said the families’ apologies rang false and weren’t delivered in person. The matter went to court.

Young said she believes that the girls should not have been running from door to door late at night.

“Something bad could have happened to them,” she said.

What a fucking bitch. She’s obviously either the product of a very backward and punitive locale, or mentally ill. Or both. I feel sure karma will take its due, as MetaFilter predicts. Oh yeah, and the judge in the case should be punished too — by having to deliver late–night cookies to Wanita Young.

tags: [colorado] [cookies] [bitch] [court]

Goodness

In more senses than one! When I started Opera the other day and it started harvesting RSS feeds, it grabbed another few Moleskinerie posts (always nice) — and there was a recent post of mine featured on its front page! The ensuing discussion has been animated. Not at all sure whether I like being featured for being controversial, but I love having been featured by one of my favourite blogs!

Now for some more goodness, although not necessarily of the surprising kind. Last night, I set up a new blog for my friend Giles. It’s currently blank but when he makes the first post, it’ll go on the blogroll. Expect incendiary eloquence. Notebooks get a second airing on these pages with Ciak - I hadn’t heard of them before, but they look like colourful… you–know–whats.

Books, of the already–written variety, have seen quite a bit of riffling at my hands lately. I’ve been reading the Christmas presents for the first time, even reading some books which have remained virgin for months on end. And one in particular that I didn’t rate too highly has been getting what I’ll euphemistically call ‘some attention’ recently. The Da Vinci Code. A documentary about the supposed code itself was on TV here earlier, which just goes to show how a bestseller can influence what you see on the box. And here’s the Opus Dei website — there don’t seem to be too many flagellants there to me. But maybe it’s all just a civilised front. Heh! ;o)

I know. Flaying yourself with a whip isn’t goodness, and I said I’d bring you goodness. Alright then. Delighted to. Now I’m going to wind down before bedtime. Night!

tags: [moleskinerie] [ciak] [da vinci code] [opus dei] [tate britain]

Plenty of curves

This album makes me think of plenty of curvy furniture, mohair sweaters, big wooden clogs with shiny red leather, glass tables and little fires in bijou little fireplaces. Not that it’s wintry. No — it’s anything but seasonal in any season. It pulls away from the sides of your glass — typical Jelly.

As far as my reviewing skills for this kind of music go, I really can’t do a good job. Other than to say that as a musical, satisfying example of the form, I’d give it 4//5, with perfection level at 4/5 and technical mastery at 5/5. I bow to the Guardian, Amazon, and the promo material, which actually is spot on as a realistic idea of what you’ll get if you listen.

The resurgence of rock in most aspects of popular music has certainly not gone unnoticed by Lemon Jelly’s Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen as ’64–’95 is littered with epic guitars and explosive refrains nestling amongst the downbeat soul for which they are best known. Opener “Come Down on Me” is tense, fiery, and for the most part dominated by the partnership of crashing power–chords and a lead synth that, while not big–beat, wouldn’t sound out of place on an old Lo–Fi’s or Chemical Brothers’ album. … Fast–forward to 2005 and a new album is here, ’64–’95, out January 31st. Based upon unlikely samples, it’s very much a Lemon Jelly record but not as you know it. It is also their first album to come with an accompanying DVD that has been lovingly created by their design cohorts, Airside. … Each of ’64–’95’s nine tracks samples a deeply unfashionable record from a year within the title’s timeframe. 1988 is represented not by acid house, but by Masters of Reality’s metal; 1976 offers fruity Oxbridge vocal group the King’s Singers instead of the Sex Pistols; 1993 is depicted not as grunge’s zenith, but the year that gave us Atlantic Ocean’s pop–trance smash Waterfall.

Lemon Jelly so often gets bastardised as function–music — not only in the sense that it’s played as background–music at various ‘functions’ but that it is used as wakeup music, workout music (erm, how exactly does one work out to this music? I want to know), filler music while you sit in a coffeeshop and stare blankly at your ersatz beverage.

While it is the fate of all modern music to be aural wallpaper, in many cases such a fate is unfortunate, and, at worst, unjust. I’m really looking forward to waking up with The Shouty Track tomorrow morning in a dark bus. But it’s excellent when you’re fully awake, doing nothing but listening, and looking around your room, feeling good. More–ish and recommended.

tags: [lemon jelly]

You can never love your Moleskine…

…too much, but you can love it so much that your ideas for how extensively to use it become faintly ridiculous. (For those who don’t know (and why the hell don’t you?! HUH?!): Moleskine.)

Moleskinerie, an excellent, excellent blog on the pleasures we can find in the tactile, the retro, the writerly and open–eyed ways that passionately using any notebook implies, has recently linked to a guy who tells you how to organize your Moleskine as a blog. This strikes me as obviously silly. A blog is, and to be a blog pretty much has to be, a hypertext document displayed on a computer with an internet connection.

The connection is the key to a blog, allowing you to surf away from the blog using its links, and then to surf away from those links, using theirs. The possibility of a non–self–referential, chaotic surf. When you write, however creatively, in a notebook, what you have is — a notebook. Repeat: a notebook. Not a blog. A notebook. Lots of paper? Writing? Hard covers? No USB port? Ah yes, that’ll be a notebook.

The addition of page numbers or little sticky tabs to your notebook is your choice and may be helpful. But, more and more, these ‘moleskine hacks’ jarringly make me think of a hypothetical kid who likes a piece of driftwood he found on the beach so much that soon we hear the refrain: “If I find out how long it is I can use it as a ruler! Look, I can dip it into my soup, it's a spoon! If I burn the end of it, it can be my pencil! I’ve drawn a face on it, it’s a cat! Meow!”

*sigh*

tags: [moleskine]

Wintry, brrrr.

Well, New York’s certainly taken a bit of a battering lately. In fact, the whole of the Northeast has. The picture above shows a white New York – white because of snow. From memory, the Northeast has had some (literally) killer snowstorms for the past few winters. And we, here in the UK, have had none. Dammit. But every winter, various sites come to our rescue, and a few days ago, it was a MetaFilter poster who linked to the Digital Snow Museum where you can see loads of fascinating and notable snow photos going back to the start of the century.

Lake effect snow events are especially devastating, it seems — just take a look at this photo page of an 86–inch fall. What happens is that winter–storm winds move across lakes (in America, usually the Great Lakes) and they pick up vapour from the warmer water and the vapour freezes and is deposted across the lee shores.

While we’re on the theme of winter stuff, those you who have seen Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining will know of this short scene:

WENDY
Hey, wasn't it around here that the
Donner party got snowbound?

JACK
I think that was farther west in
the Sierras.

DANNY
What was the Donner party?

JACK
There were a party of settlers in
the covered wagon times. They got
snowbound one winter in the
mountains. They had to resort to
cannabilism in order to stay alive.

DANNY
You mean they ate each other up?

JACK
They had to, in order to survive.

The Donner Party is something I knew about only from the movie, and then leading on from that MetaFilter thread I found another one which points to a PBS site called, appropriately, ‘The Donner Party’. (It’s not about celebrations in which delicious spicy strips of beef stuffed into pitta bread are eaten.) The transcript of the associated programme is fascinating — check it out here, and for more harrowing, cannibalistic goodness, be sure to read more sources around the web.

And with that, good night. Stop by some London Underground station photos on your way out.Update: the patches are working, I don’t feel nicotine cravings at all!, but I still love the thought of a cigarette. Meh.

Oh, the evils

Each cigarette of my chosen brand delivers 0.6mg of nicotine into my body. Gallaher’s website lists 4 ingredients added to tobacco; it also has a page on nicotine addiction which is filled with qualifiers, prevarication, avoidance, and an amount of fudge which would make a child clap its hands.

Addiction is a tricky conversation–piece for many. Forest, the UK’s smokers’ rights group, says that nicotine isn’t addictive — or, at least, that smokers aren’t addicted to nicotine. They can quit, therefore there’s no addiction. Right? Wrong. Addiction as a dictionary definition isn’t really that useful a thing to discuss; better to judge whether or not the chemical manipulation of cigarette ingredients by tobacco companies makes the enjoyment of a cigarette chemically exceptional — and exceptional enough to strongly encourage having another, and strongly discourage stopping.

Another problem is that there’s a lot of bullshit on both sides of the smoking argument. Organisations like Ash (anti–smoking), while clearly on the ball that smoking is bad for you, tend to supplement their source material with manipulative presentation and exhort governments to violate the civil rights of smokers. Organisations like Forest, which are pro–smokers’ rights, are often honest about the health effects of smoking on smokers, but also often strangely say that smoking isn’t an addiction but a habit, and that there are no health worries about passive smoking. Presumably this is to bolster their “it’s not scientifically apocalyptic, therefore you needn’t ban it” attitude.

I’m not going to spend more time on all this; a few quick google searches give you an endless resource.

But, I think that: smokers have a right to smoke unless it is completely outlawed; passive smoking is not always significantly harmful by any means; it is highly unpleasant to most non–smokers; tobacco companies are the devil incarnate; well–intentioned friends and family can seriously become unintentional demons incarnate in their often well–intentioned but hamfisted efforts to get someone to stop; smoking is highly pleasureable but not just chemically:

If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It’s a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul. People smoke to celebrate a happy moment, or to hide a bitter regret. Whether you’re alone or with friends, it’s a joy for all the senses. What lovelier sight is there than that double row of white cigarettes, lined up like soldiers on parade and wrapped in silver paper? I love to touch the pack in my pocket, open it, savour the feel of the cigarette between my fingers, the paper on my lips, the taste of tobacco on my tongue. I love to watch the flame spurt up, love to watch it come closer and closer, filling me with its warmth. … Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries.
—Luis Buñuel

And yes, I agree with all that. Fervently. Giving up cigarettes, for me, is going to be a matter not of being a total non–smoker or a light smoker. It is going to be a matter of being an occasional smoker. Why? For the same reason I’d not give up drinking champagne, eating wild mushrooms or buying very expensive books. But why, then, am I crapping myself at the prospect of quitting my regular smoking? Because it’s breaking an addiction. I’ve tried to find material online about the health effects of enjoying 10 fine cigars a year, and I can’t, but I’m fervently hoping I can break the addiction, and be like the people I know who enjoy a single cigar (perhaps with some good port or even tokay) every few weeks.

Smokefreeless

One thing which quitting smoking can really screw up is other people’s heads. I plan to be a prime example: in a while I will have what probably won’t be the last cigarette in my life (keep reading for why) and sometime after that, I will dig out my shiny new patches, and stick one of them to my lower back.

It’s going to be a difficult journey. I am, after all, addicted to nicotine. It is the most powerfully addictive drug known to man, exceeding even heroin and cocaine in its apocalyptically intense withdrawal symptoms. But that addiction is not why I’ve kept smoking for just over 8 years. That addiction does not completely explain why it’s going to be so difficult. Why? Because, in a way, that addiction doesn’t matter. I am a difficult smoker, probably one of the most difficult of all, because I like smoking in and of itself, and would smoke nicotine–and–tar–free cigarettes like a train if they existed.

That’s why the title of this post is emphatically not ‘smokefree’. To be free of someone or something, you’d have to have sort of disliked them or it, wouldn’t you? Smoking: oh you alluring thing, come into my boudoir. Nicotine, on the other hand — fuck off away from me, you squalid whore.

I do want to be nicotine–free, very much so. I am someone who (from now on — hopefully) smokes very very rarely indeed, loves smoking, and hates the tobacco companies for chemically manipulating and messing with the dried leaves of the tobacco plant in very many harmful ways. They add nicotine, for god’s sake. They then boost its effects to get you hooked on it, and thanks to the expertise of the scientists and lawyers who work for them, they deliver the world’s most addictive drug to you for the rest of your life and you give them a massive amount of money in return.

They don’t care about an addiction–free product and a smooth, warm taste. They are in the nicotine–delivery business, and they care about that — and your money.

Now, on to part 2.

Titan

That, there, is a composite panoramic view of the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, taken during the recent descent of the Huygens probe. The Cassini spacecraft, which dropped the Huygens probe, is on a four–year–long mission to orbit Saturn, has already been able to send spectacular images of the rings back to us here on Earth, roughly 9 a.u. (or 1,350 million kilometres) away. In addition to the image above, there are other really amazing photos — take a look.

From what the scientists can glean from the data they’ve collected so far, it seems that the surface is an orangey colour, and is the consistency of wet sand or firm mushy ice. The dark areas seen above could be seas, or could be areas where seas or bodies of water have mostly dried out. The lighter lines near the top of the panorama are either present or former coastlines, with land above. There seems to be a peninsula of some kind just right of centre. The temperature is a couple of hundred degrees below freezing, and the atmosphere is mostly methane. The clouds are methane. The seas, if there are seas, will be liquid methane — in other words, very cold lighter fuel!

Of course I know that humans haven’t made it to Titan, but I’m still quite excited by all this — I mean, think about it! We can blast a very light, very hi–tech piece of metal through our robust atmosphere, somehow point it in the right direction, and send it where we want it to go! Not just 100 miles out. Not just 1,000. Not just a million. But nearly one thousand million miles away. We can control it precisely from a distance like that! We can take photos, we can even tell what’s in the ‘air’ around it! Is that not — truly and literally — marvellous?!

Just re–reading the above, it might seem that I’m doing the all–too–usual crowing: the “how powerful we humans are” speech. I’m not. I’m marvelling at this because we are so small know so very few things, and it’s just plain miraculous, a massive stroke of luck, that we are able to do this kind of thing at all. Clearly, a lot of the scientists are still speculating excitedly:

…European colleagues spent a sleepless night analysing data transmitted from Huygens during its four–hour life on Titan.

The mission's success has raised hopes of understanding the evolution of the solar system and of life on Earth. As Al Diaz, science associate administrator of Nasa — which has collaborated on the Huygens mission — said: ‘Titan is a time machine that gives us an opportunity to look at conditions that existed on early Earth.’

There were a few glitches, however. These included the loss of half the 700 images that were to have been beamed back to Earth, a failure that occurred because one of Huygens’s data channels was not switched on automatically. The European Space Agency, which built the probe, is to carry out an investigation.

But the loss was a minor one, and European scientists yesterday hailed the mission as their greatest interplanetary success. Among the sensational information beamed back from this strange, freezing world were images of what seemed to be rocky shorelines lapped by a dark liquid sea.

Phew. Quite something, huh? :o)

Right. That does it

No more shopping at Waterstone’s for me. Not online, not in person, not ever. I really am torn by this decision because as a former employee, a book–lover, and a longtime browser of the great stores like that at Piccadilly in London, I’ve grown greatly attached to the place. But when a company slowly becomes a soulless travesty of what it once was, and then acts truly brutally towards its staff, it’s time to start denying it your money.

Waterstone’s has sacked a very long–serving member of its staff for writing — satirically, ocasionally, disguisedly, and on a specifically satirical blog — about his work there.

I pointed out that I had over my eleven years promoted Waterstone’s in many ways, sometimes on my own time. I have organised and hosted more author events with more writers for the enjoyment of more book-buyers than I can recall. I have written for the guide books which Waterstone’s had printed on various genres. I have appeared in print media and broadcast, talking on the BBC in my own time about literature, introduced as an expert bookseller from Waterstone’s in Edinburgh. That’s publicity you can’t buy. I had contributed to the Edinburgh International Book Festival when Waterstone’s still sponsored them. I told them that there were numerous authors who would tell them that I had been an excellent ambassador for the company. I even defended them when the company was attacked in the Scottish press for not supporting independent Scots publishers (oh the irony). None of this seemed to matter to Waterstone’s yesterday.

What appears to have happened (so far) is that someone unknown saw his blog, complained, and his line manager — or the store manager — decided to sack him. At the disciplinary hearing he was told he’d brought the company into disrepute and… well, he talks about everything on the link above.

Not surprisingly, other bloggers and book–lovers aren’t at all happy about this. But none of this will make a difference unless the many notable writers who know this unfortunate guy start to help by speaking out. Waterstone’s used to be a chain which wasn’t really a chain: the sort of place bibliophiles were actually glad to see colonising our towns and cities.

Since HMV bought the business, (interestingly, Waterstone’s’ founder, Tim Waterstone, wants to buy it back after accusing it of going down–market) it has become a place where, if you work there, it’s apparent that money and bureaucracy have a joint rule above all. That’s quite a thing to say about the way a bookshop is run.

And it is the way in which it is run that I am attacking. Individually, the staff conform to the workaday type of the bookseller: there are those who work for the money, but more who also work for the books, and their love of books. My manager, for example, had worked his ass off to open Waterstone’s Piccadilly when he could have sat on it in another part of London. My colleagues, who hailed mostly from the UK and were sprinkled with some international arrivals, were young, educated, and (mostly) either really liked books or loved them.

By cutting the budget of each branch that does not perform as well as it is told to each Christmas, Waterstone’s sets in motion a process which causes any such branch to perform less well on each succeeding Christmas, and the stock at other times of year starts to suffer. Of course, many stores of many kinds do this. (Not many managers, however, would sack a longtime bookseller who could write well, and who wrote satirically once in a while, and who was personally known, which is why I reckon this was a Regional Manager or Head Office slaying.) But it is the difference between what was, and what has now come to pass, that slowly drags a book chain’s reputation down among those who count.

Update: this story has hit the bigtime, and there’s a useful page of links here.

Nostalgia

Something inside me couldn’t quite let go of the desire to celebrate the festive season just past while I’m still on holiday. So, since it’s back tomorrow to the world of work for me, here are memories, laid down for your nosiness and my present and future nostalgia. A long post, but the memories are worth it and I don’t care.

(List of characters: Dad = my dad. James = my brother. Liz = his wife. Coralie = my niece. Simon = my nephew. Sarah = my sister. Chris, Giles, Mark, Steve, Ryan = my friends. Thea = a jolly, eccentric friend of the family.)

Walking through the carpark at Sainsbury’s, our local supermarket, as it neared midnight on the 23rd, feeling the rain on my skin. Thinking about where the turkey, vegetables, etc. came from, and looking forward to the atmospheric, loving preparation on The Day.

The ritual of kneeling on the floor of my room, door closed, on Christmas Eve, and wrestling with presents, wrapping paper, and sellotape. Sitting in my chair to inscribe books. Feeling The Day very close indeed. Later, a late night kitchen, the roasting–tin, covered with foil, sitting on the floor to receive the turkey. Covering the turkey with butter and streaky bacon, thinking of the Christmas tree in the living–room next door, and the fire burning in the hearth. Wandering upstairs, earlier in the day, midway through preparing the stuffing, and hearing the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on the radio.

Pouring bourbon into tumblers as the clock ticked towards midnight and the start of Christmas itself. Waking early on Christmas morning, happy, and recognising with joy that it still felt like a day removed completely from any normal week or month. Pulling back the curtains and seeing deep snow outside. In the kitchen, seeing that the oven was already on and the turkey inside. Snow–light shining into the house.

The doorbell ringing as Thea arrived, and immediately getting the ’96 Veuve Clicquot out of the fridge. Easing the cork out slowly, hearing the muffled thunk and pouring it quickly.

Snow falling steadily outside the window as we ate. Curling up on the settee afterwards, dark outside, the tree glittering in the corner. Passing the room where we ate, seeing the candles still burning at the warm, littered table.

Gleefully gobbling some of the crisped bacon which came off the turkey later that night. Generally, pulling corks. Wandering around in the snowy back garden, drawing a smiley face with freezing fingers on the lid of the old bin. The following morning, seeing the snow gone, smiling, and settling into the settee with coffee and a big book about wine.

A few days later, walking into the kitchen at night by the back door and hearing the front door open and James’s voice shouting “Hiya, Peter!”, and walking into the hall and hugging him, Coralie, Simon, and Liz. Sitting in the living–room, the fire glowing, and sharing some whisky as presents were opened and chatter warmed the world.

A big meal the next day, children’s faces glowing in the candle–light, a toast proposed with a cluster of clinking glasses high above the table. Photographs of the festive table tweaked on the computer.

Walking in Belvoir Forest on New Year’s Eve with James, Liz and the kids, and a longtime friend of James’s, glorying in familiar trees and streams revisited with a big brother who hadn’t seen them for far too long. In the evening, being in the kitchen as James and Liz bickered goodnaturedly over the preparation of dinner, and seeing dad making a massive salad of tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and a delicious homemade dressing.

After the meal, hearing shouts from the living–room — Liz rushing into the kitchen and yelling “Where — IS — THE KITCHEN ROLL!” and seeing little scared Simon sitting all bloody after falling headfirst onto the edge of the living–room door. Their deliberations over a visit to casualty on New Year’s Eve. Their departure, Liz’s anxious wait, my fear that midnight would pass with my nephew in hospital.

Their triumphant return at half eleven, Simon smiling, packed off to bed. Glasses of wine, and hugs from James, and a stupendously long and spectacular firework display from London on TV. Drunk phonecalls from Ryan. Later, in my bedroom, voice lowered so that Coralie didn’t wake in her room next door, a long, drunk phonecall from Steve and an elderly, eccentric, port–swilling, cigar–smoking member of Northern Ireland’s fading aristocracy. Downloading scores of Bach’s organ music. Sleep.

The next day, traditional New Year emptiness nowhere to be found or felt as the house was buzzing with scampering children and smiling, relieved parents. A late lunch of roast sirloin of beef, almost maddeningly delicious red wine from Bordeaux, (I imagined Loire châteaux for some reason) and conversation.

The day before they left, having lunch and afterwards being in the Crown with James. An attentive, thoughtful, cathartic catch–up over many pints of Guinness. James deeply appreciating Belfast pints. Dark, atmospherically crowded with people, James ordering ‘one for the road’ before we hailed a taxi and went home to a murder mystery on TV and bowls of hot Christmas Pudding and brandy butter.

Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004

Well, it doesn’t seem nearly a fortnight ago that it happened, because even after two weeks, this most devastating of natural disasters is still creating daily havoc.

On Boxing Day, the TV networks were saying that the best information they were getting on the tsunami was over the internet, because the comparatively primitive communications infrastructure in many affected regions had been wiped out. So people blogged and blogged and blogged, and Wave of Destruction rapidly became the place to go for video and photo footage.

Flickr, which hosts some of the more recent photos on this blog, has a tagging function for photos, allowing this ‘tsunami’ page to become a photofilter of a kind, and Tony Denmark’s ‘before and after’ satellite photo gallery is taking so many hits that Mac.com is getting angry with him, so go to Digital Globe’s original, fullsize tsunami photos as well / mostly!

Typically, Wikipedia has an extensive set of tsunami articles — the link goes to the category for the 2004 earthquake, from which you can browse for varied info.

The Great Banknote Robbery

You know, you hardly hear of robberies of massive amounts of actual cash anymore. And why? Because the stuff is just so unvaluable in terms of its bulk, compared the the equivalent bulk of jewels, for example. Or paintings. Or bearer bonds. Just about any other robbable, desirable commodity you can name, really.

Which is what makes last month’s Belfast robbery of nearly £25m (over $40m for my Stateside friends) so audacious and gloriously old–fashioned. What is also old–fashioned is the clunky way in which it was done. Hold the families of two staff members hostage, tell them you'll kill the families if they don’t help you get the booty.

And then, after leaving such a locally familiar calling–card, tell everyone around you that it wasn’t you. Yes, IRA. We believe you. Even though you are the largest and most complex terrorist organisation in the UK, and have an impressive track record of hostage–taking, robbery and intimidation, it couldn’t have been done by any of you. At all. Course not.

OK, OK. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that. But at the same time, the BBC story’s headline “Police ‘could link IRA to raid’” made me laugh because everyone else here did that on the 21st of December! Ha! Catch up, police, FFS! :oD

Abstinence

That word really doesn’t fit in with this time of year, does it? I’m prepared to allow a bit of abstemious thought on New Year’s Day itself (any my god, did you see the fireworks in London at midnight?! wow!) but now all those resolutions have been abandoned, abstinence just feels wrong, doesn’t it?

Not to some American kids, it doesn’t — and I am of course talking about Bush’s drive to indoctrinate teenagers in sexual abstention instead of giving them sex education, or even safe sex education, come to that!

At Shoemaker High School they use an abstinence-only course popular across Texas called Worth the Wait — a trademarked brand.

Koehler continued her lesson by listing the sexual activity that fell in the ‘danger’ category. ‘Regular intercourse; anal intercourse; oral intercourse; skin–to–skin under clothes; genital contact; and there are some problems with deep passionate kissing — these are risky behaviours.’

Holding hands, hugging with clothes on and ‘light kissing’ were OK, the teens were told. Koehler then ran through the gamut of sexual diseases. ‘How are you going to keep yourself safe?’ she asked the class. ‘Abstinence,’ they chorused.

‘What do you also hear will keep you safe?’ she asked. ‘Condoms,’ they answered.

‘Do they keep you safe?’ she asked. ‘No,’ they chorused.

Koehler believes young people are unreliable in their use of contraception. She is banned by law from promoting the benefits of correctly used condoms.

It is not simply appalling that such brainwashing occurs in schools in a highly–educated and scientifically advanced western country. It is not simply cringeworthy to watch young people’s very bodily freedom be dictated to by such a behind–backs religious and sexually trappist agenda.

It is, quite obviously to me at least, bloody dangerous (psychologically, ethically and sexually) to teach teenagers that sex is hazardous outside marriage, blissful in marriage, and that the only correct thing about contraception is that it shouldn’t be used. Because quite apart from the harm this crackpot scheme would do to the sex lives of these teenagers if it actually caught on, it’s worth remembering that they will — oh, yes they will — have kids some day, and will talk to their kids about sex.

A thoughtlessly abstemious attitude like this one is irresponsible and I hope that ultimately American kids will treat it with the contempt it deserves and feel free to have safe, responsible, mindblowing sex whenever the hell they freely choose to.

And on that note, Happy 2005! :o)

The Haul

Well, I can’t give you photos of the best present of the day, because we didn’t venture out — but there was rather a lot of snow here on Christmas Day. As we sat, eating and drinking, over a laden table, the snow whirled fluffily through the air outside the big window, and when we reached the pudding, (raspberry crème brulée) we toasted the raspberry canes which were shivering in the frozen soil.

And then, the next morning, it was all gone! Not a trace of snow anywhere! Grr. Hopefully, though, more snow should arrive before the end of winter, since this was an early fall. Anyway, I thought I’d make a slow start to posting by telling you What I Got For Christmas in links.

Snow, Winter, Lost Worlds, World Press Photo, Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old, The Story of Wine. And I partly bought myself a Zen Touch mp3 player from Creative. To a creative mind, these things are all inspirations of one kind or another. And for technophobes: the value of the mp3 player isn’t gadgetlike or as a toy to me: it means I can listen to Bach instead of traffic or screaming children. (If you play, by the way, that Bach link contains sheet music in PDF format - excellent resource.) And while traffic–noise has its place, most of the time I’d really rather not.

Footnote: although presents are certainly one good part of Christmas, I’m actually happier that my big bro and his wife and kids are here for a few days’ stay. They haven’t been here for about ten years, and the kids have never been. It’s a cosy, companionable, homely time…

Another footnote: don’t think for a second that I’ll be posting regularly until the festive season is over. There are more important things to do than blog. For example, right now, I have to feel virtuous by doing a workout so that I can then feel justified in being a pig and gobbling at least 3 mince pies and a mountain of rum butter all in one go.

White Christmas!

Yes, I know I said I wouldn’t blog unless something earth–shattering happened, but it has. We have a white Christmas! Yay! Great big fluffy flakes, snowlight shining silvery inside a warm house, and the sounds outside muffled by this white winter muffler. And when I stepped outside the door this morning, the first bird to settle on the lawn in front of me and poke for food was — a robin.

Yup, definitely Christmas. :o)

Merry Christmas, everyone

First of all, here’s hoping that whoever you are, wherever you are in the world — and even whether or not you celebrate Christmas, you’ll have a relaxing and restorative few days and the spirit of the time will give you a calm smile!

I’m sorry that I haven’t been posting for the last few days: work, shopping for and preparing food have hitherto made surfing and blogging impossible. Eating vast amounts of food and entering into all the right spirits and wines will make surfing more enjoyable and blogging too much of a hassle over the next few days, so I’ll see you all again around midweek, unless anything earth–shattering happens. Have a good one, people.

And if Santa comes down your chimney, make the filthy old bastard wipe up afterwards!

Lincoln: great thighs!

The latest gay scandal to hit America: Abraham Lincoln was gay. Or maybe he wasn’t, because gay didn’t exist then. Or something. *grin* — And, this is exciting for me anyway — the respected BoingBoing showcases an organ as one of its most recent ‘wonderful things’. Bravissimo, BoingBoing!

Saturnalia

It all began a few days ago. Men rushed, yelling, through the streets. Shops were looted. Little old ladies were violently knocked to the ground and stamped on by the throng. Younger women were sexually assaulted. Families, faced with a violated daughter, felt anger but accepted that there was nothing they could do — all the courts and police stations were closed. Mountains of food had been prepared and eaten; the week was marked by permanent hangover.

That was a description of the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, celebrated there between the 17th and (perhaps) 25th of December. Jolly historians like to refer to it smilingly, forgetting for a moment that the period of wondrously frightening excess in food, drink, sex and violence ended apruptly — with the death, by mob, of the ‘Lord of Misrule’, an enemy of the Roman state who was selected, deliberately, for a week–long life of excess and a horrible death. A symbol of the destruction of evil forces.

Weirdly, our Yuletide customs like eating gingerbread men also grew from Saturnalia — eating a human figure?! Ugh! Christian leaders had to let pagans keep their gingerbread men and their Saturnalia because the idea of being a Christian would have been unbearable without them! And lo, the Christian leaders then (rather desperately) decided that, since there was nothing even remotely Christian about Saturnalia, they’d better arbitrarily decide to celebrate Jesus’ birth on its last day. And then follow up immediately with their own twelve–day–long religious feast to balance things out a bit. Aww. Sweet. Ickle baby Jesus! Coochee–coo!

Sorry

‘It’s a sorry day for (democracy/the country/the economy/freedom of speech) when…’

When what?

When honest, hardworking, downtrodden satirico–cultural news–sheet publishers are driven to hand you a Sorry edition of their paper on the streets of your city. It’s a sorry day when they have chosen to exclaim, brightly, “Sorry!” before you even know what they’re trying to give you!

I’m very sorry to report that The Vacuum, an excellent offbeat ‘penny dreadful’ (which doesn’t cost you a penny!) has been embroiled in a funding row by none other than Belfast City Council. I read about the first rumblings of this fiasco months back, and didn’t blog about it then. (Sorry.) The shock, when it emerged that ‘God’ and ‘Satan’ issues had been printed, with lewd pictures! The mortification, as I now learn that the news has made it over the water!

Councillors (yes, City ones, not Church ones!!) were calling it filth, and other encouraging names, and accusing it of promoting devil worshipping.

Basically, what has now happened is that our pedantic, prehistoric, preachy, prurient, patrician Protectors in the City Hall (which looks so warm and welcoming under the Christmas lights, by the way) have decided, in sequence, that:

they think it’s offensive but shouldn’t do much about it because of the European Convention on Human Rights;

they will change their minds on that, and ignore their Principal Solicitor’s advice instead;

they will withhold all future funding unless Factotum, the V’s publisher, “provides an apology for any offence which may have been caused to Members of the Council and the citizens of the City by previous publications and provides an assurance that future publications will meet such criteria as may be established by the Council”;

it won’t withhold future funding after all, and won’t seek to impose limits on what the V may or may not print, as long as the V issues “an apology or some expression of regret”.

The good of the people of Belfast is clearly at stake here — if The Vacuum doesn’t apologise, it might have to be printed on only a couple of sheets of newsprint in future, instead of a couple more. Belfast would suffer.

Determined not to deprive Belfast’s upstanding citizens of a good laugh, the publishers have decided to take action! And so, today, on the streets of a wonderful city which I am temporarily sorry to call my own, The Vacuum said sorry in style. And it published a — frankly — sorry edition to commiserate.

Get your bits out

And ward off the evil eye! At least, that’s what the Romans, those superstitious fools, thought your cock did for you - kept you safe. As long as it was actually in phallus form - I think the picture above gives you a pretty good idea about what a phallus is. ;o)

The ancient Greeks even had a god called Priapus — his name giving rise to the term priapism. His erect penis was taller than his entire body. He was a protector of livestock (baa). Apparently his prodigiously large member ensured superb fertility. But why, you ask, am I mentioning all this?

Well, in medicine, there’s a discipline called urology which deals with all the medical stuff behind your urinary matters. And there’s a European Association of Urology, believe it or not. And that Association had a Historical Committee (why?!) and its Chairman, Johan Mattelaer MD, has written a very interesting paper about the phallus in art and culture.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating that we all go around with erections all the time. Occasionally, it’s pleasant of course. But aside from the danger and discomfort a continuous erection would cause, gay men mostly act far too much like that’s all that’s going on in their lives anyway, and although I’m sure they could give very many fucks, I’d want to be more creative.

Talking of creation, did you know that the Ancient Egyptian creation myths include these lovely stories?

…the god Atum appeared on the Primordial Mound out of the void of Nu. As the first “thing” in the midst of nothingness, Atum relieved his loneliness by masturbating. His ejaculation resulted in the appearance of the first god and goddess, Shu and Tefnut, who became the parents of all other elements of the world. An alternate version indicates that the god Ptah, architect of the universe, maintains cosmic order through continual masturbation.

Are you shocked by that? If so, remember that you’re certainly not the first: the Victorians were so fascinated by sexual matters partly because their social mores didn’t allow them to be discussed, and so scared of sexual matters (wide–ranging link on nudity and sexuality in general) that, in the British Museum in London, some of the racier scenes on Greek vases were turned to the wall where they couldn’t be seen.

[Disturbingly, when I wandered into the kitchen mid–post, my dad was talking on the phone and said “…and they recommend superlube as the absolute best”. Erm. Fitting.]

If I dug a hole…

…where would I end up? It’s often said to kids in the UK that if they were to go into their back garden with a spade, an extra lifetime and an absurdly thick asbestos suit, they would end up tunnelling to Australia. In fact, we would end up in the sea southwest of New Zealand and this map shows why.

While we’re on the subject, it’s also a mistake to assume that Greenland is as big as Africa, or that Europe is as big, either. The relative areas of continents are distorted (excellent link) on a variety of earth maps, along with distance, direction, accuracy of outline — and all because it’s impossible to ever accurately map a globe on a flat surface.

Or is it?

Personally, I can’t wait for the day when electronic encyclopedias and atlases offer ultra–ultra–high resolution zoomable globes instead of flat projections. [All this is from MetaFilter, but they left out a map of the ocean floor.]

Boy Butter

Try squeezing some into your tight agenda today!
— Eyal Feldman, CEO, B.B.I. Inc.

I saw this and just had to — apologies to Boy Butter (tm) for featuring their trademark, but I couldn’t not, really! *grin*

“Boy Butter is a revolutionary multi-purpose lubricant, which maximizes the pleasure of sexuality in all its forms and provides guaranteed good times. Preferred by Boys, Girls, Men, Women, Gays, Lesbians, Heterosexuals, Fetishists, Jews, Christians, Buddhists and Muslims alike.”

Well, there we are then. Furthermore, their President, Eyal Feldman, says he’s not only the President of the company but also its lead researcher. *grin*

Apparently it cleans up really well too — so no more agonising over whether to shower immediately or lie beside your partner and choose tissues, toilet roll or towel. This could be to lube what the iPod is to mp3 players, mes amis. ;o)

Invaded

We’re too close to see whether this man is also clapping his hands, but the woman next to him is crying also, and clapping her hands at the same time. These are Parisians as the Nazi troops march through their city for the first time.

Just looking at the faces and imagining what it must have felt like, you don’t have to be French or patriotic to appreciate this — which is why I put it here. The library of photos it comes from is fantastic. Via Incoming Signals.

Titanic, June 2003

If you want to see what the wreck of Titanic, built in dock in Belfast in 1912 — and sunk by collision with an iceberg later that year — looked like last year, go here — photography from the wreck. (I got thie link from alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic) There are more Titanic photos here, here and here.

And, since I thought it’d be interesting to give the Titanic sinking some historical context, take a look at how the sinking fits into wider history.

“Teh gay”, bad words, Micro$oft, and nice pictures

Censorship has always been all the rage: as long as there is a surfeit of liberty — intellectual, sexual, cultural, you name it — there’s always a movement which disagrees and says, firmly and didactically, that it’s BAD. And this week is the week where we all get to look forward to the 2,004th birthday of Jesus and get hot under the collar about intolerance.

(Actually, tolerance isn’t that hot either, but moving on…) Utah. Let us wander thither, and note the quite laughably prudish case of a teenager whose principal told him that to take his boyfriend to the prom, he’d have to get a note from his parents first. Aside from the issue of forcing him to come out to his parents to do so (if he hadn’t already) I think you get the idea of how shitty that was.

Sex education in American schools, with its new emphasis on Federal funding for solely those syllabi which only list the failure rates of contraception, is just as dangerous and twisted. You can’t contract HIV through sweat, or get pregnant from a bit of pussy–rubbing, but this is what these kids are to be taught if the Bush administration gets its way.

Even blogging isn’t safe from the monolithic censor, as Microsoft’s new online blogging software comes with a built–in engine which prevents you from using words like ‘anal’ or ‘Lolita’ — “Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov” is an unacceptable blog title but “Dick, Balls, Boobies, Goddammit” is. Heh. Stoopid.

Film gets it in the neck (erm…) next, with a film about Kinsey being the next target of America’s religious right. Kinsey liked blowing Americans (’ sexual lids off), you see.

And why all this? Well, according to people who aren’t liberal, being liberal about sex is a very threatening thing because it emphasises us as sexual, and therefore physical, beings — part of a species, not really touched by the divine. Sex is very bad PR for humanity in these people’s eyes. And suicide is very bad PR for the famous MIT and NYU in America. Universities’ corporate arms are scared that parents will sue. So one of them has decided that if you’re feeling suicidal for any reason, you can’t continue to study there. A vicious example of how important money is, to the utter slap–in–the–face exclusion of a rich and rewarding life.

Luckily, there’s plenty of reward on hand — or on plane — if you’re a radio–controlled model aircraft enthusiast and a photographer: you can take really wonderful pictures!

Advent

Get your (cyberspace) National Gallery Advent Calendar here. — Via MetaFilter, where there are a few more.

I love times like this. *beams happily* In fact, thinking about it, when I was a kid and it was Advent, I used to enjoy calendars which didn't have chocolates but did have atmospheric little drawings of seasonal scenes. Some things don’t change.

Advent, for me, is a month like a year — a year of ever more atmospheric, promising months. You don’t have to be a christian to find the magic in a season which promises good food and wine shared with family and friends.